by Nancy Martin
Signet, October 2002
272 pages, $6.50
ISBN: 0451207246
Blackbird Sisters series #1
Nora Blackbird, a 31-year-old widowed Philadelphia socialite, has a problem. Her parents have left the country for a suitable climate--that is a climate more suitable for tax evaders. Before they left, they gave gifts to Nora and her two sisters. Libby, the oldest and free-spirited sister, received the furniture. Emma, the youngest and sexiest, received the family art collection. Nora, the most responsible of the three, received the family farm--along with a delinquent property tax bill for two million dollars. Nora needs a job, and, old family friend and newspaper owner, Rory Pendergast, comes through for her. Nora accepts the position as assistant for hated society writer, Kitty Keough. And Kitty is not happy that Nora has been hired. She is positive that Rory is trying to ease her out of her job in order to hand it over to Nora.
To solve her most immediate problem, Nora sells five acres of the family land to Michael "The Mick" Abruzzo, rumored to have mob connections. He immediately turns the land into a used car lot. Libby and Emma stop speaking to Nora. To humiliate Nora, Kitty sends her to cover the grand opening of Mick's Muscle Cars. To make the situation even worse, sister Libby and her four children also show up at the grand opening and hold a protest against the "desecration of open farmland for suburban sprawl".
Immediately following the grand opening, Nora heads out to Philadelphia's Main Line and a party at Rory Pendergast's mansion--her first party since her parents ran off. She runs into Kitty, angry and fresh from a scene with Rory; a tearful Peach Treese, Rory's intimate companion for the past thirty years; and Jonathon Longnecker, an angry young museum curator. When Peach reports that Rory refuses to attend his own party, Nora volunteers to talk him into coming down. But when she walks into Rory's bedroom, she finds Rory dead.
The next day, Emma hands Nora a bag supposedly containing books from Libby, but actually containing a leather folio of erotic art. A note from Libby asks Nora to return the folio to Rory's home. Shortly after that, Nora's home is ransacked. Nora has already vowed to find Rory's murderer. But she has no idea what to do with the art folio or with her growing attraction to Abruzzo, who is determined to protect her from danger.
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